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Peanut butter manifesto

The coffee shop I frequent was out of peanut butter cookies today, again. This may seem a minor issue to you, but there’s a backstory.

When I was very young, I put my trust in all the usual stalwarts of society – the used car salesman, the insurance company, the heroin pusher, even (against all my instincts) the priest – only to see my hopes crushed one by one, until all that remained was a bitter shell of a man. I became a cynic, and believed that not only was everyone just out for personal gain, and to hell with everyone else, but they actively sought and enjoyed the experience of disappointing others. Worse, I thought they had tumbled to my instability, and banded together to make my personal life miserable. I would hear of a terrific sale, only to find that the price had doubled once I made an irrevocable order. Or I would attend a formal affair, and find that, not only was my fly open, but the zipper was irreparably broken (I still don’t know how they did that). Worst of all, whenever I would start buying something regularly, it would disappear from the shelves.

I know what you’re thinking. That’s just crazy paranoia, and I should get over it, trust the used car salesmen again, get on with life.

Well, that’s exactly what I did. It was a tough, grueling road, fraught with traps and pitfalls, but with perseverance and, yes, positive thinking, I began to see these coincidences for what they were.

Then I started going to a small local coffee shop, just a hole in the wall, really, but with a friendly, quirky vibe. They had a display case with a variety of munchies, including which were, regularly, peanut butter cookies.

Now, a peanut butter cookie is the perfect snack. Fist of all is the delicious flavor, along with that unique and inexpressible texture, which together make for un unsurpassed snacking experience. As if that weren’t enough, the thing is made of peanuts, a small amount of sugar, and eggs. Nutritionally speaking, you couldn’t find a combination that could provide a better fuel for a human. So I started buying one regularly with my breve.

It started slowly. I would go in one day, and they would be out of peanut butter cookies. No big deal; it happens, and the next day all would be well. But it started happening once a week, then twice a week, until, now, I rarely find the cookies available, ever. When I ask, I’m told the last one was sold just moments ago; once recently, they even went to the lengths of pretending their oven was broken, and they sold only funky looking things that looked like gravel encased in polyurethane.

Yeah, right. If the oven was broken, how did they make the gravel cakes, hmm?

But this time, I’m not giving in. I’ll never go back to the life of paranoia that I so narrowly escaped. I know exactly what to do.

As God is my witness, I will never eat another peanut butter cookie as long as I live.!

Sounds like you’ve put a double whammy on yourself…you may work Murphey’s Law to your advantage…but then you won’t be able to eat them without giving up your resolution…which will mean, just as you’re about to pay for them, the manager will come up and say: “sorry sir, these have been reserved.”

It happens to me all the time. If I buy something more than twice, it disappears. “Discontinued,” is how the store employees always refer to it. I know it sounds paranoid, but it’s hard not to wonder if they’re watching.

Have you tried asking if they’d make a batch of peanut butter cookies just for you, like a special order? You could freeze them.

I’m in the exact same position! Every time I like something, the company stops selling it. I’ve tried writing letters in green ink, I’ve tried cutting and pasting messages from newsprint, but all I get are restraining orders. Life can be so unfair.